Welcome to my life

I was first introduced to the power of music as a 3-year old sitting in church with my parents. I remember keenly watching the pianist play the hymns each week before going home to try and figure out what I had just heard. Since then, I've never lost the urge to discover all that I can about music and how it works.

However, as I've grown older, I've also given more thought to the ways that music functions as part of our larger society. This stems in many ways from the time I spent in college studying broadcast journalism (my second major) and working as a field reporter for the local news station. Those experiences opened my eyes to the shocking lack of awareness that many people have surrounding not only world issues, but issues facing their local communities.

I attribute this mainly to a failure of all parties to clearly communicate with each other. Music can bridge these gaps and provide all of us with a digestible way to plug into the world outside of our doors. It is for this reason that I devote a significant portion of my programming to music that speaks towards current social issues, rather than limit myself solely to the wonderful, though sometimes overplayed traditional repertoire. It may be an unreachable aspiration, but I aim to be a conduit for positive social change with every program that I learn.

This feature is rendered via ajax

National Sawdust Presents: LISTENING TO TOM-TOM: LUCY CAPLAN IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AMOC

Renowned scholar Lucy Caplan partners with the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), one of National Sawdust’s Artists-In-Residence, to lead Listening to “Tom-Tom”, a discussion of the 1932 opera by author, musicologist, African-American civil rights activist, and composer Shirley Graham Du Bois. Following an introduction of excerpts from the work sung by bass-bariton Davóne Tines, Caplan and fellow panelists will discuss the opera’s complex representations of race, gender, and history in addition to the opportunities and challenges of presenting Tom-Tom today.